Tuesday 17 May 2011

days of flood ~ prayers and respect


Hoop and Holler Bend, photo by Northern Pike


There is a flow of water carrying the brambles of life across the furrowed and fallow fields of my old home place, the place where we once found purchase, just for a few generations, before being swept along further. Swept up here on the coast, with a heart smeared across half the continent, choose your focus well as everything follows from what you choose to focus on.


My dad told me about the Hoop and Holler, more than once, showed it to me, spoke of it with affection—just a damn turn in the road, it seemed to me, but meaningful, to him at least, somehow. And here it is in the news, alongside the river i played along, wishing i lived there too instead of between the sandhills and the dug outs scooped from the land—everything natural is slowly carried away in trucks, it seems to me, the revision of the land can only go so far before the river speaks back, calling to the lake with its bird-emptied marshlands, you are dying too, like your sisters to the east you are dying.


I try to remember how the flow of life is a good and not a bad thing, to resist the urge and tendency to cling to the edges of things, to cling to the familiar and a certain, just-so way of seeing and doing things. I try to recall that swimming is what we do, that we are the water, that the structures i was taught young were never the truth of the world, which is why i abandoned them—went looking for a description of all that goes down and comes up through the surprising gashes in the ground, and settled on this, the appreciation of the flow, the just of the ebb, the ever-new creation of life itself through following it’s natural course on every level.


I am vulnerable to the flow. As i flow along and erupt in surprising gestures, wondering at the landscape of self washing over her own embankments, where do i place my focus, how do i situate myself in the overflow of my own being? Did i shore up these sides of myself, and dig out or weaken these elements, in response to what longings or threats, in reaction to what insights or visitations? 

When i center myself on this and this and this, being specific people, land, beings, and from a deep place trust—these are the steady real that together will bear the weight of my web, these are the reliable corners of my three-cornered world, these are the natural companions and the weight-bearing vehicles that can carry me through, not just from one place to the next, but from one place in the generations to all of the succeeding generations affected by me—am i able to withstand the disasters of being?


O resilience, o heart of living being, express yourself through my moving mortality, let me be a good guide and place for the rivers of life and the brambles to pass through.


 With thanks to all who shared life this tumultuous weekend, the poetry diplomacy and the sharp turns and all that follows in its course ~ to Rita Wong for a timely reminder down-stream, and for her poem, "Clearcut in the Capital," and to Michelle for chiming in ~ with thanks to Gladys Radek, who writes:

Walk4Justice 2011



First Nations in British Columbia: walk4justice

  
Dear friends, family and supporters,

We are sending you our brochure for Walk4Justice 2011. Thanks to Nicole Tait for making it for us. They can be printed two sided and folded into three. Please print and pass them out, email them, pass them along.
Families and volunteers right across the nation are workin towards this historical journey.

The Highway of Tears walkers will be meeting us in Kamloops, we will then split ino two groups, one for the north and one for the south. We will meet with at least two memorial walks enroute and another group of walkers will b meeting with us in Winnipeg from The Pas.

We have over 100 walkers who will be joining us throughout and we have at least a dozen permanent walkers signed up. Updates will be coming shortly.

Thank you all for your invaluable support for our Missing and Murdered women in Canada. We are looking forward to walking in their honor and fight for proper justice for all of them. Respect to all the families who have trusted us to keep their loved ones voices alive. We truly honor each and every one of you.

Prayers and respect,
Gladys Radek and Bernie Williams

For full details on walk4justice 2011 & to download brochure: 
First Nations British Columbia website, walk4justice http://fnbc.info/walk4justice
On facebook: walk4justice2011

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Finding Dawn, Christine Welsh, 2006~ watchonline NFB
 Save My Lake, The Nature of Things, 2011~ watchonline CBC

Photos by Northern Pike: http://www.flickr.com/photos/northernpike/

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